Published inVan Life

First Steps of a Home

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If I had a hammer, I’d build a home

I’ve been building a tiny home inside a van for the past few months. This whole project sort of began to have its wheels turn about a year ago, later winter 2018/2019. Where I was coming to terms with being denied formal ordination and trying to figure out what I’d do with what I have. I decided to try camping, seeing if I could just spend more time out in the wilderness and practice. I started looking into camping sites, found a lot of them asked for money, started Ducking illegal camping, found Squat The Planet. I read Matt’s book An Anarchist’s Guide to Travel and decided at the end of it to become a rubber tramp, to live out of a van. That was early summer 2019. I read two more books on the topic, one by Bob Wells and one by Vandog Traveller. Bob’s was probably my favorite on the topic but Matt’s really connected with me in a certain way, it also got me into dumpster diving. I bought the van, a Ford Econline 150 2008 at the start of August 2019, a few days after my birthday.

The day I signed for the van
  • It came with a partition I had to remove
  • Had to rip up the floormat
  • Prior to rust/dust cleaning
  • After cleaning and repainting
Initially I just spent some time cleaning the whole thing up
  • My dad helped a lot with the fan install
  • Relief came after we cut the hole
  • The fitted flange
  • We used wood underneath to secure the fan
The fan, as everything else, turned out to be a bigger project than I anticipated
  • Next came time to install a ladder rack for the solar panels
  • We had to cut the uprights shorter to prevent shading
  • With all three on
  • Mounted!
  • Cable entry
We installed 800 watts worth of solar panels (Renogy)
  • Next came the subfloor
  • The pieces fit
  • We marked drill holes from the underside, in the rain
  • Post-drill cleaning
  • Sym helped me bolt the panels into the body floor
  • HEAVE!
  • All bolted in atop an underlayment
  • The side step had to be cut to fit back in
  • Indigo shaved their head with me and then helped me cut some plastic and polyurethane the subfloor
  • Ain’t that nice?
The subfloor was the next step of the project
I sawed an extra-long twin mattress (memory foam) to be only 2ft wide
I constructed a curtain using white blackout fabric and a wide flat curtain rod.
  • Next I constructed a bed frame
  • It demos alright!
  • Fits in with minimal issue!
  • Broke my side mirror
  • Installed rain shields
  • Vacuumed shavings off the roof
  • Met a big mantis boi
  • Went to Lowes a lot
Along the way I did other things

Next steps are to have a professional install some vinyl flooring. Then once that’s done I will finish the electrical system and continue with further additions like a table and lights.